


a thing in its self, equivocal, foreknown

by lovebeyondmeasure



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Feels, Stark Tower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 03:52:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13355916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovebeyondmeasure/pseuds/lovebeyondmeasure
Summary: Maria leaned against a wall and considered her options. If Natasha was avoiding everyone, she seemed to be doing well; either no one had seen her for hours, or she’d only been seen by liars good enough to fool Maria. If that was the case, Maria figured she ought to go back to her apartment and wait for Natasha to show up, whenever she felt ready.If she was avoiding Maria specifically, however, Maria thought she better find her and have it out. Natasha was incredibly good at avoiding problems until they went away, simply by dint of disappearing from the country on a mission until the person gave up and moved on. Maria had exactly zero interest in that outcome.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crimsoncat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crimsoncat/gifts).



> A BlackHill prompt from the lovely Crimsoncat has gotten a bit away from me. Expect the next chapter in the next few days.
> 
> Title from ["The Black Swan" by James Merrill.](https://thepoetryplace.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/the-black-swan-by-james-merrill/) An excerpt:
> 
>  
> 
> _Although the black neck arches not unlike_  
>  _A question mark on the lake,_  
>  _The swan outlaws all easy questioning:_  
>  _A thing in its self, equivocal, foreknown,_  
>  _Like pain, or women singing as we wake;_  
>  _And the swan song it sings_  
>  _Is the huge silence of the swan._  
> 

Maria knew Natasha was still in Stark Tower, because, well- she’d asked a security guard she was friendly with, and he’d checked the logs. Natasha had come in that morning for a “team-building exercise,” and had not left yet.

It was nearly 5 p.m., and Maria had no idea where her girlfriend was.

She’d checked, very casually, with Tony and Bruce, who were recreationally blowing things up; Thor had left, as had Clint, and Steve was putting up with “media training” and hadn’t seen Nat for a few hours.

Maria had watched for a while as poor Steve put up with two PR professionals, both vetted by Pepper. They were trying to teach him how to deliver lines into a camera, which he was trying to convince them he already knew how to do. It was entertaining.

But she resumed her search. There were really only so many places a person could hide in this building; a lot of the floors were offices, and while it was technically possible for Natasha to have ducked into a cubical to hide out, it really wasn’t her style.

She wasn’t in the shooting range, or the weapons testing facility, both of which were hidden in the basements; she wasn’t enjoying a treatment in the spa. She wasn’t anywhere on the “communal floor” Tony had created and invited people to hang out in with a casual gesture that did nothing to hide the loneliness that the entire concept betrayed. 

Maria leaned against a wall and considered her options. If Natasha was avoiding everyone, she seemed to be doing well; either no one had seen her for hours, or she’d only been seen by liars good enough to fool Maria. If that was the case, Maria figured she ought to go back to her apartment and wait for Natasha to show up, whenever she felt ready. 

If she was avoiding Maria specifically, however, Maria thought she better find her and have it out. Natasha was incredibly good at avoiding problems until they went away, simply by dint of disappearing from the country on a mission until the person gave up and moved on. Maria had exactly zero interest in that outcome.

Methodically, she worked her way down through the floors earmarked as “Avengers Initiative” on the floorplans. There were four, including the “communal floor,” and Maria was fairly certain that Banner had an apartment in that space, and her investigation revealed several more apartments, empty and unused. 

“Oh, Tony,” she sighed as she closed the door. “There are better ways to make friends.”

As she made her way to the stairwell, the faint sound of music caught Maria’s ear. She followed the sound back towards a short hallway which she’d assumed led to more empty apartments. From behind one of them, orchestral music was audible.

Maria nodded along for a few bars, the music sounding vaguely familiar but not enough to place. Then, the orchestra swelling, it came to an end. No other sound came from within the room. Maria wasn’t certain it was Natasha, and didn’t want to disturb anyone else who might be using the space.

The music began again, and this time Maria could hear the soft scuffing of footfalls, and suddenly she realized what was happening: this was a studio. Someone was dancing to the music.

Dancing? Here, on a floor reserved for Avengers Initiative business? It could _only_ be Natasha. Maria waited once more for the music to swell and stop, but this time the triumphant final note was punctuated by the sound of a body falling and a muffled “Ouch! Oh, fuck.”

Well, there would never be a better opening than that. Maria tried the door handle, and it…. was locked. Of course it was.

She considered her options and quickly moved down the hall. “JARVIS? I need a favor.”

“Yes, Ms Hill?” The disembodied voice followed her lead and spoke quietly.

“Could you let me in to the room Natasha is in?”

“I’m sorry, Ms Hill,” JARVIS replied. “She has expressly requested to not be disturbed at this time.”

“Yeah, I know,” Maria said. “I need you to let me in anyway.”

“I really cannot do that,” JARVIS said, and for an AI, he really did sound disapproving.

“JARVIS, listen to me,” Maria said, quick and low and aggrieved. “I understand that Nat doesn’t want to be disturbed. But she’s going to continue not being disturbed until she manages to get assigned out of the country, then she’s going to avoid me for like a year, then we’re both going to pretend like our whole relationship never happened, and I don’t want that, OK, JARVIS? I would like to keep dating my girlfriend, and I need you to do this one thing for me so I can keep doing that. Alright?”

“Please allow me to consider the ramifications of these options, Ms Hill,” the AI’s voice said. “I will be prompt.”

Maria stood in the hallway, now secure in the knowledge that Natasha was in that room, and tried to think of what to say. She hated going in to conversations like this one unprepared; in high school, she’d practically had her relationships scripted scene-by-scene. Of course, she’d been dating men at the time.

“I believe it is in Ms Romanov’s best interests to allow you to enter the room,” JARVIS said after what was probably only a few seconds. “Please wait until I open the door. I will notify you when it is unlocked.”

“Ah, okay,” Maria said. “Thanks, JARVIS.”

“You are welcome,” the AI responded primly. “I will wait until Ms Romanov is at rest to allow you to enter.”

“That’s smart, JARVIS, okay.”

“I am quite intelligent, as my maker intended,” JARVIS said. Maria smiled at the ceiling at his pious tone.

The music stopped, then…. stayed off. After about 20 seconds, the light on the lock flashed green, twice. Maria took a deep breath, then knocked firmly and, without pausing, opened the door.


	2. Chapter 2

She heard Natasha before she saw her.

“JARVIS, I said I didn’t want to be disturbed!” 

“Sorry, Nat,” Maria said, casual and non-confrontational. “It’s just me.”

“Maria?” Natasha looked at her, wide-eyed for a split second. “What are you- you shouldn’t be in here.”

Maria nodded, taking in Natasha’s sweaty face, hair pulled severely back, her black leotard, beat-up pointe shoes. “I know you think that. But I disagree, and so does JARVIS.”

Natasha, wiping her face, glared up at the ceiling. “Traitor!”

“My apologies,” JARVIS said. “I believe this to be in your best interests.”

“I’m going to have to speak to Stark about this,” Natasha muttered, turning away from Maria.

“So you’ll talk to Tony but you won’t talk to me?” Maria asked mildly. She was careful to not project any anger at Natasha; that would only create sparks, and when the two of them got going, they could burn houses down.

“What is there to talk about?” Natasha responded, just as mildly.

“The fact that my girlfriend is avoiding me after being out of the country for three months is what I’d like to discuss,” Maria said. 

“I’m your girlfriend?” Natasha asked, sounding surprised. “I thought you were happily playing the field.” She uncapped a water bottle, taking a long drink.

So that’s what this was about? Upon reflection, Maria shouldn’t have been surprised, but no one is infallible. 

“Tasha,” she said, carefully stepping closer. She didn’t want to scuff the wood with her boots, but she could hardly have this conversation from ten feet away. 

“Don’t- don’t Tasha me,” Natasha said. “We had a thing, it was nice, now it’s over, that’s all. Don’t make it more than it was.”

Maria came closer. Natasha was still avoiding direct eye contact. It was almost funny, how a spy of such high caliber was so bad at interpersonal relationships. But then, no one who loved other people ended up in quite their line of work. And Natasha.... hadn’t exactly chosen this life. 

Damaged people were good at reading body language, good at manipulation, and good at running away. Maria knew that perfectly well. She was just tired of running.

“What was it, then, Tasha?” Maria asked softly, standing outside Natasha’s personal space but close enough to be unignorable.

“It was- a fling. Just two lonely people, you know?” Nat turned, now, to look Maria in the eye. “That’s all. Let it go.”

“I don’t think that’s all it was,” Maria said, looking into Natasha’s familiar face, noting the bruise on her chin, the cut on her cheek. “Is that all it was to you?”

Natasha nodded, almost smoothly. Maria might have believed her, if she hadn’t known better.

“That wasn’t all it was to me, Tasha,” Maria said lowly. “You know that.”

Nat tossed her head, a gesture that would have sent her hair rippling if it had been down. “ _Do_ I know that?” she asked, her tone like a knife being sharpened on a stone. “I don’t know that. You’ve already moved on, haven’t you?”

“Tasha-”

But she was moving away. “You’ve already dated other people, which is- good for you, Hill. Lindsey Jacobson in the armory, she’s beautiful, and I know that Elaine in Recruitment is a tough nut to crack, she must've been-”

“Tasha!” Maria hadn’t moved. “I didn’t sleep with them.”

Natasha rolled her eyes as she stretched one foot up nearly to shoulder level. “I know you, Hill, that’s not how you do things.”

“Tasha, I took them out because _you_ asked me to keep our relationship a secret, and both of them asked _me_ out!”

She scoffed and began to stretch her other leg. “Sure, and you just _had_ to say yes.”

“Well, considering no one knows I’m in a relationship, I had no reason to turn them down! And you practically forced me to go out with Gina Oliver, you know how I feel about going out with other women-”

“In this situation, doesn't that make me the other woman?” Natasha asked sweetly. 

“No,” Maria said firmly. “I’ve been faithful to you, Tasha. I was counting the days until you got home. But you’ve been back three weeks and haven’t said so much as a word!”

“Is that why you’ve stalked me to my private studio?” Natasha asked.

“Yes!” Maria said, frustrated by this woman and her refusal to accept reality. “Because I know you, Tasha, I know how you think, and you’re going to take the next mission out of country, and the next, and the next, until I give up and start dating someone else and we’ll never talk things out, and we’ll never know what could have been!”

“What? What could have been? Are we going to go from having illicit sex all over mission bases to, what, Getting married? Buying a house together? Getting a couple of dogs and a Subaru?” Natasha’s voice was hard, cutting, dismissive.

“Tasha,” Maria said, letting her honest feelings into her voice, finally. “Please. Just look at me. Talk to me. If you don’t want to be with me, fine, just _tell me so_. Don’t ice me out and disappear.”

Natasha stopped her series of warm-ups and stood still, watching Maria in the mirror. Maria made eye contact with the redhead’s reflection.

“I want to be with you, Tasha,” she said. “However you’ll have me. Even if it means never telling anyone about you, even if it means hiding this forever. But I don’t want to. I want to tell people that I’m with you. I want to brag about you and take you on dates and- and have that one thing that even we get to have.”

“What do we get to have?” Natasha asked, quietly.

Maria almost didn’t say it, but there was something in Natasha’s eyes…. “Love.” The word seemed to fill the room. “If it happens. If it grows. I want that, and I want that with you. If you want it too. And if you don’t, that’s,” Maria swallowed. “That’s fine, I understand. But I think we could have that. And I want to find out.”

Natasha stood very, very still. Maria watched her reflection and knew her own face was as open as it had ever been.

“And what about when people find out?” Natasha asked, looking away. “When they ask you how you can love a murder and a criminal? When those other women stop asking you out because you’ve been tainted by just being with me?”

“I don’t care about these other women, Tasha,” Maria said. “I don’t. It’s not about them. It’s about you, and me. Us. It’s not-”

“Of course it is,” Natasha cut in. “Life is about other people, managing their expectations, their views, their opinions.”

“Fuck their opinions!” Maria exclaimed. “Natasha, listen to me. I want to be with you, and only you. I want to be able to tell people that I’m with you. Just tell me if you don’t want that too, and I’ll leave, right now.”

Natasha’s silence spoke for itself. Maria took a deep breath.

“I know that- that hearing I’d been out with other people wasn’t what you wanted to hear when you got back. I know. And when I was with them, I was only thinking about you. Because Tasha, it’s you. It’s always been you, for me.”

Natasha slowly turned towards her. Maria stood still, let Natasha approach her, slow and cautious as a feral cat. 

“You mean that,” Natasha said, tilting her head slowly, eyes wandering over Maria’s face. “You really do mean it.”

“I do, Tasha,” Maria said. Letting her heart show on her sleeve didn’t come naturally to her, but for Natasha, she was trying. 

“You missed me?” Natasha said, and her voice was small, soft now, vulnerable in a way that Natasha so rarely allowed herself to be.

“Desperately,” Maria said. “Every day.” She allowed one hand to come up, slowly, to cup Natasha’s face, running her fingers over the scab on her cheek. “Please, Tasha,” she said, so quiet.

“I won’t be your trophy,” Natasha said.

“What? No!” Maria said, startled. 

“I won’t be- I can’t-” Natasha, one of the world’s best spies, seemed at a loss for words.

“Tasha, you don’t have to do anything but be yourself,” Maria said, stroking the planes of her face.

“But which self do you mean?” Natasha asked, and Maria could hear a world of hurt in those few words.

“All of them. Any of them. Just-” Maria looked at her. “Just come home to me, and we’ll figure it out. Together. Just come home to me, Tasha.”

Beneath her hand, Natasha’s eyes closed, and she nodded, once, twice.

Maria felt as though her heart had sprouted wings, fluttering in the cage of her chest, begging to take flight.

“Yes,” Natasha whispered. “Yes, Maria. Okay.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.” Natasha opened her eyes. “You have me, Maria. I cannot promise anything, but you have me.”

“That’s all I ever wanted,” Maria whispered, and telegraphing her intentions, leaned in. Natasha met her halfway, and their kiss was familiar, but new, different. It tasted like the promise of tomorrow.

Maria couldn’t have said how long they stood there, wrapped in each other’s arms, soaking in the silence. 

JARVIS cleared an imaginary throat.

“Ms Romanov,” he said, and he managed to sound apologetic. “Sir is on his way to this studio. He has a new sort of weapon he wishes for you to test, and he will not be stopped.”

Natasha leaned back, and Maria was charmed by the fact that Natasha had a blush to match her own. 

“You should go,” Natasha said. “If you don’t want to be caught here. Stark will have your business all over the Tower by the end of the day, if you stay.”

Maria looked down at this beautiful, dangerous, amazing woman. “Do you want me to go?” she asked. “Because I just got done telling you, I don’t care if people know. I _want_ them to know. So I’ll go if you want me to, but otherwise, I’d love to see you testing out whatever new toy Tony’s dreamed up.”

Natasha bit her lip, uncharacteristically hesitant. Maria stepped back, in anticipation.

“Stay,” she said finally. Maria felt the smile grow on her face and didn’t bother trying to stop it. 

“Okay,” she said, stepping close once more. “I’ll stay.”

JARVIS had time for a warning flicker of the lights before Tony burst in dramatically, tailed by an apologetic Bruce Banner.

“Jane Bond! Listen, I was thinking-” Tony stopped short at the sight of Maria, who was leaning casually against the wall, one hand laid in a gently possessive grip against Natasha’s hip.

“Ms Hill! I didn’t know you were, uh, entangled in the widow’s web?” Tony waggled his eyebrows in a ridiculously lecherous fashion. Bruce looked embarrassed.

Natasha looked over at Maria, and the look the pair of them turned on Tony was cold enough to freeze his bones.

“Right, okay, no teasing two of the deadliest women you know, got it,” Tony said, his hands flying up in a classic I’m-innocent gesture. “Loud and clear. Hill, do you want to come see your girlfriend blow some shit up?”

Natasha turned to Maria. She grinned. “I would like nothing better, Stark,” she said, looking right into Natasha’s eyes, “than to watch my girlfriend blow shit up.”

“Great! Okay!” Bruce was tugging Tony out. “Get changed and we’ll meet you in the blowing-shit-up room!”

As the door shut behind them, Natasha looked at Maria.

“So I’m your girlfriend, then?”

“Well, considering I’ve been thinking of you as such for the past six months, I’d say yeah, I think we’re there,” Maria said. “Come on, go change, I wanna watch you blow shit up.”

Natasha laughed, and it was one of the most beautiful sounds Maria had ever heard.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” she said, and kissed Maria once more, and this time it tasted like the future. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is! I don't have any more plans for this little universe at the moment, but with BlackHill week coming up, I won't rule it out.
> 
> If you were curious, the piece Natasha was dancing was [a variation from Swan Lake,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsxdVdv3yPs) which is how I chose the poem that the title comes from, as well. It didn't make it into the story, but you can watch the linked video for an idea of what Nat was up to in there.
> 
> I love writing Maria and Natasha, and I hope you enjoyed reading about them. Until next time!


End file.
